'Vous etes senegalese? congolese? ivoirienne???'- Day 2, Paris

So I woke up to Tony and Simon leaving at 6am to catch a train to Pamplona to run with some bulls (No one could pay me enough to do something like that), and then went back to bed. Cesar then woke me up about 4 hours later and informed me that the free breakfast being served ended in approximately 10 minutes, so I sprang out of bed and we booked it to the dining area of the hostel. There I met my German friend, who used his map to direct me to the Eiffel Tower. After breakfast, I checked out of the hostel, took my bags to the front for storage until later, grabbed my ukulele, and headed towards Champs de Mars by foot. It probably took me about an hour to get there but it was a nice walk. Rain kept threatening, but I'm pretty sure I willed it away. I dont want to type that much, so here's some pictures.

first peek at the tour Eiffel!

looking unimpressed

looking thoroughly impressed

the big and lil tour Eiffel!

the first of many jambon fromage galettes bigger than my head

just a girl and her galette hanging out at the eiffel tower.

So this last picture has a bit of a story. There's always people selling things around this area because there are loads of tourists. I was just minding my own business, playing my ukulele, and for the most part they left me alone. Then two of the venders approached me. 

"Vous etes senegalese?"

 "non"

"Congolese?"

"non"

"Ivoirienne?"

"non je suis Ghanéenne"

Me telling people that I am Ghanaian in French I guess throws them off because Ghana obviously wasn't a French colony haha. But they then asked me to sing and play for them so I did. One of the vendors said 'Vous chantez tres bien' (you sing very well) and then gifted me two Eiffel tower keychains. The other man proposed that I ditch the imaginery boyfriend I made up in America so that he could show me around Paris and take me dancing. I respectfully declined haha. 

Around 3pm, after finishing my time on Champs de Mars by playing some original songs for some Aussies on holiday, I started heading back, so that I could make it for check in at the Cité Universitaire where I would be staying for the month during the program. Its basically student housing for international students, but I feel like there are some local ones as well. Either way, students live in a bunch of different houses with people at different universities all over Paris. Its a really cool idea I think! After checking in and dropping my bags in my room, I briefly met up with my friend Lin from high school who studies here before heading to Nancy's apartment for our welcome event. With my phone dying and my minor brain fart of how to use the metro/tram/RER system, I got there an hour and a half late. But I got there and hadn't actually missed that much, because a lot of people were running late. There I met Nancy, Laurence (our teacher for the medical french courses and the person who had done my interview), the MICEFA intern Babacar, and the 7 other students that would be doing the program with me. We were also joined by two french general practitioners who gave us an overview of the french health care system and the type of things that we will see during our small internships. Its a completely different beast out here, but its pretty well known that France is considered to have one of the best healthcare systems. I'm super eager to dive into it. After the more formal interactions, we broke for a bit of wine and finger food, because why the hell not, this is France haha. Everyone seems really nice and super intelligent, and I was very impressed by everyone's level of French. Not that I'm super great or anything (on the contrary, I haven't had it as a constant presence in my life like I had during college), but I dont think anyone else was a French major like I was. Interestingly enough, a lot of us have ties of some sort to either Haiti or West Africa, which is pretty legit.  Afterwards, Christel, my roommate, and I headed back to the CitéU to grab a bite to eat and watch the US vs Belgium match. We were dead tired halfway through and ended up leaving and finishing watching the game in our room. Of course we didn't go to bed until past 2 though, for no good reason at all haha. But it was a solid day, and we set alarms to get ready for our first class the next morning at 10.

I think that's it haha.